No More Dead Poets
by A-GIRL-NAMED-BILLY
Summary: OC. Basically just a what-if fic. Any better summaries please review in exchange for a virtual cookie of your choice. T for safety. Chapter 3 re-done!
1. Hellton

No More _Dead_ Poets:** Hellton**

AN: possibly a misleading title, but you'll all get it by the end. OC for the record, as there is no Carmen in the movie. This is almost an introduction type thing to Carmen.

Disclaimer- I want a dead poet, but that doesn't mean I own them. How possessive do you think I am?

Carmen walked into professor Keating's classroom. She walked up the empty rows of desks, listening to the sound her feet made on the hard cold floor. Mr. Keating was sitting at his desk, but he did not look up immediately on hearing her enter. He set down his work when he had finished reading, which was when she caught his attention.

"Carmen?" He asked, standing up and pulling off his reading glasses.

"Professor!" she said, setting down her bag next to one of the wooden desks. He set the glasses on his papers and walked around the desk.

"I haven't seen you since you graduated. What have you been up to?" He put his arms around her in a friendly hug.

"Mastering English and becoming a teacher." she replied, patting his shoulder and stepping back.

"Have you really? Well done. I was told I would be mentoring a student teacher, but I didn't realize that I would be teaching an old student of mine. Of course they leave out that you're woman as well. The boys will be excited about that."

"Thank you, professor," she gave a small laugh. "I'm sorry I was late. My train was behind."

"Fear not!" said the professor, in his characteristic poetic way, "Our young students have essays to hand in and poems to read aloud on Monday. Plenty for you to assist me with." She nodded and smiled.

"That's the fun part isn't it?" Carmen was sarcastic. She knew that would be the part she liked least about teaching. Grading paper after paper after paper, all written on the same subject. Over and over and over.

"Well of course it is," Mr. Keating answered, sounding genuine. "What wouldn't be fun about reading the work of students?" Carmen smiled again.

"You were entertained reading my essays then?" asked Carmen.

"Of course I was, so much in fact…that I kept them. Feel proud. Your papers have been all the way to London. England." Feeling flattered, Carmen said.

"So have I. I did a semester abroad over there with my sister school." He raised his eyebrows and smiled at her.

"Kudos," _ahh_, Carmen had forgotten his interspersed uses of multiple languages. "You could have come and said hello you know."

"Were you teaching there?" It was 'catch up' time. She had not seen her old professor in six or seven years now. How was she to know he had taught in London?

He nodded. "I was."

"Well then. I'm sure you'll have many poetic stories to share about London later."

"Later," he said, "I'm going to get back to this. Go ahead, take the weekend to get used the Hellton," Carmen snorted.

"Hellton?"

"That's the nickname of our finest New England College Preperatory School for boys, Hellton Academy, and you'll be staying here for the next eight weeks."

"That's encouraging. I'll see you on Monday then, after I've been acclimated to Hellton."

AN: Think it sucked…well stop reading if you're smart because there's plenty more where this came from.


	2. English Teacher to the Core

No More _Dead _Poets: **English Teacher to the Core **

Disclaimer- I want a dead poet, but that doesn't mean I own them. How possessive do you think I am?

AN: Dudes. Tell me what you think! Seriously, do you like it or is it dumb or what??? I can't judge my own writing because of course…well…of course I think it's ok because otherwise why would I put it in writing, or online for the world to read??? Basically…read and review

Carmen sat down beside Professor Keating, with Professor McAllister on Keating's other side.

"…misguided though it was," said McAllister as Carmen pulled her chair in. She had come in a few minutes late, due to the fact that she was staying just off campus and had difficulty finding the dining hall. She had missed prayer, but she could pray on her own time.

"What was?" she asked, looking past her old professor to see McAllister piling mashed potatoes onto a white china plate.

"You've read the textbook have you?" he asked, passing the bowl to Professor Keating.

"Of course I have," answered Carmen. Truth be told she was not quite finished, but she wanted to be sure she knew the book very well, understood every word and phrase when she did finish.

"The introduction too?" asked Professor Keating, laying a napkin in his lap. Carmen nodded. "Do you recognize it?"

Carmen smiled. "Yes sir. It's the same book we read _my_ senior year. I still have that copy," said Carmen picking up her fork, but looking at McAllister and Keating.

"Do you remember what we did with that essay by Mr. J. Evans Prichard Ph.D.?"

She laughed. "I do. Your classes don't vary much do they? Have you done the walking exercise yet?"

"No. You could lead that though." Carmen nodded.

"Absolutely."

"Excellent. But, not 'sure', '_absolutely_'," said Keating happily.

"An English teacher to the core."

"Umm…excuse me," said a new, younger voice. Carmen looked around. "Hello," said a freckly red-haired boy. He extended his hand. "I'm Richard Cameron."

"Well hi there. Eager are you…to meet your teachers?" The boy blushed.

"Well then…until Monday." And he hurried away. Carmen snorted into her drink and she lifted it up to have a taste.

"That's always assuming of course I can find my way from apartment to campus, through campus and to classroom come Monday morning." She said.

"You'll get the hang of it. If all else fails, call Mr. Nolan and have him show you around," said McAllister.

"I might have to do that. This place is huge."

"Bigger than your school in London?" asked Professor Keating. Carmen thought, comparing the two schools in her head.

"No, but I stayed on campus there, so it was a little less confusing."

They finished dinner quietly. Occasionally Keating leaned over and pointed to one of the boys in his class. "That's Steven Meeks. And beside him is Mr. Pitts."

"That's unfortunate," Carmen said. Keating nodded and smiled.

"I said the same thing. There's Mr. Dolton, the one sitting next to Cameron." A brown-haired boy was laughing while Cameron looked annoyed. "On Charlie's other side is Knox Overstreet." Cameron saw a boy with light brown hair and a dreamy look on his face. "Across from him is Mr. Todd Anderson." Carmen looked up to see a shy-looking, blond-haired boy, staring at his plate as if there was something very interesting on it. As far as Carmen could tell, there was nothing so interesting, unless crushed up starch and carbohydrates draws your gaze.

"And that's Neil Perry." Carmen moved her eyes from Todd Anderson to look more closely at a boy with brown hair. His hair fell nearly to his eyes, which were illuminated, even from this distance.

"Richard, Gerard, Steven, Charlie, Knox, Todd…and Neil," Cameron repeated slowly to herself. "Easy enough."


	3. Center Stage

CHAPTER 3!!! I HAVE RE-DONE IT!

AN: Did I have a disclaimer on this when I first wrote it? I don't think so. The beginning is exactly the same but the ending is re-done thanks to the awesomeness that is Swing Girl At Heart! You totally rock.

Disclaimer: Hell, this idea isn't even all mine it was inspired by Swing Girl At Heart. I also don't own Dead Poets Society, which is depressing. Oh well…

*** means that this is where the chapter is different from the original.

No More _Dead_ Poets:** Center Stage** (this has always been the correct title, I just can't type apparently. hehe)

Monday morning rolled around with Carmen rolling sleepily out of bed early. Maybe she should have gone for kindergarten teaching. Afternoon classes and finger painting all day sounded like a plan at five thirty in the morning.

"Are you excited to hear some poetry?" asked Mr. Keating, walking forward excitedly. Cameron made some sort of noise in response and indicated her cup of iced coffee. "No no no!" Keating exclaimed. He took the cup away from her and walked to the chamber behind his classroom. "If you aren't awake by the end of this class, you can have that back." Carmen sighed.

A loud bell rang above her head, making her jump slightly. "Put your coat here," said Mr. Keating, She took his advice, and then sat in the comfortable leather chair, looking at the class as they entered the room. She recognized most of the boys from Keating's whispering on Friday, but all the boys looked at her like she was a stranger, which was true.

"Good morning gentlemen! If you're wondering who out guest is, her name is Carmen Reilly. She was a student of mine and now she's come back to learn again. Welcome!" Carmen smiled. "Let's jump right in. If you could all please put your essays on my desk, nicely for Carmen."

The boys did as they were asked, and then Mr. Keating walked over to the side of the desk. "Help me push this will you Carmen?" Carmen stood and walked to opposite side of the desk. "1, 2, 3." Together, she and Mr. Keating picked up the heavy wooden desk and moved it to the side of the room. "Thank you," said Keating quietly, then to the class, "Who's first." His eyes fell on Knox. "Step up Mr. Overstreet, center stage!"

Knox took a deep breath before rising from his chair and standing in the middle of the room. Carmen sat down in the corner of Mr. Keating's desk to watch and listen.

"_To Chris:_

_I see a sweetness in her smile,_

_A bright light shines from her eyes_

_Life is complete, contentment is mine"_

Carmen heard some of the boys start laughing, and she glared over at them before looking back encouragingly at Knox.

"_Just knowing that…" _He paused, _"just knowing that…she is alive"_.

Carmen smiled, but Knox crumpled up the paper in his hands and sat down angrily. Charlie leaned forward and patted him on the back. "Sorry," said Knox, looking at Mr. Keating. "Stupid."

"It wasn't stupid Knox," said Carmen, standing up before Mr. Keating even moved. The room went quiet and she glanced around before continuing. "It was sweet. A little creepy, but…" The laughing had not stopped. "Have you learned what poetry is for? Do you remember? Well, Mr. Overstreet, I think you hit the nail on the head with that one. "

"Mr. Hopkins, you were laughing, you're up," Mr. Keating said. A boy in the second row stood up and walked to the front.

He said, "The cat sat on the mat."

"I think you might have hit your thumb with that one compared with Knox," Carmen said quietly as he sat back down, smirking.

Mr. Keating told him "Congratulations, you have the first poem to receive a negative score on the Prichard scale. But simple themes aren't always bad. Some of the most beautiful poetry can be about simple things like a flower or a tree or rain, just don't let your poems be ordinary." He turned and looked around.

"Mr. Anderson, why don't you step up and we can put you out of your misery?"

"I…I didn't do it," stammered Todd shyly, "I didn't write a poem."

*** It was interesting for Carmen to realize how much she had in common with Todd. When she was in school, she had been given a similar assignment. She had written her poem, but had been afraid, terrified to read it out loud. Mr. Keating looked at her and she almost laughed. She knew that he was reminded of a younger, more timid Carmen as well.

Mr. Keating walked to the board and picked up a piece of chalk. _I sound my barbaric YAWP_…Carmen knew that sentence. How very useful a simple sentence by Walt Whitman could be when it came to helping people open up. Todd stood up and walked to the front of the room, Mr. Keating's hand on his arm, guiding him.

"A yawp?" Todd asked. Carmen smiled again to herself. That had been the exact reaction of her and most of her class when she had been asked to shout loudly halfway through the class period.

"_A what?" Carmen asked, hands in her pockets as she turned to look at Mr. Keating. "How does one yawp?" _

"_Give us a yell, say anything, say--,"_

"YAWP!" Carmen was wrenched from her flashbacks as she heard Todd's shout. It echoed slightly over the newly emptied space where the desk had been. Carmen paid attention as Keating gestured to the picture of Whitman above the board.

"_An old bearded guy," Carmen said, and then "I don't know, and insane old bearded guy?"_

"_You can do better Carmen." She though hard, looking up at the face of Uncle Walt._

"_He's a…"_

"A sweaty toothed madman," sad Todd. Carmen snapped again back to the present. That was not what she had called Walt, though it had changed from being 'an old bearded guy' to…

"Good God boy there's a poet in you after all!" exclaimed Mr. Keating. Carmen tried to remember what words she had used to describe the bearded black-and-white face of Uncle Walt.

Somehow Mr. Keating seemed to be able to take people down the same road. It led to the same place every time, but never ceased to change direction, twist and turn on its course. Somehow, Mr. John Keating, graduate of Hellton Preparatory Academy had the gift of allowing people to free their minds and _open their mouths_. Carmen knew that when she was in school she was not afraid to put up her hand and answer a question. She had given many a worded answer and very rarely been wrong, but anything that had not come from a book stayed firmly in her head. If she occasionally put pencil to paper, that paper was a prized possession and no one saw it. And now… she was watching as Todd opened up his heart to an entire class of teenage boys…the constant end to Mr. Keating's most interesting path to travel.

She clapped with the rest of the class as Todd opened his eyes and looked around.

**AN: What do you think? Review and let me know!**


	4. Knox

No More _Dead_ Poets: **Knox**

Carmen watched as, one by one, each of the boys in the class had risen, walked to the front and recited a poem. Then she had eaten again with McAllister, who seemed to have given up on changing Mr. Keating's 'unorthodox methods'.

"Knox," she said as she headed for the door of the dining hall. He looked around at her and she nodded her head to indicate that he should follow her.

"Ooh," chorused most of his classmates.

"Oh shush up," Carmen said, stifling them at once, though she was smiling playfully at them, "Don't pick on Knox. Don't you know that's the last things he needs? He's a love struck teenager." She saw Charlie roll his eyes, but Neil returned her smile and turned the subject back to a small blue book in his hands.

"Sorry to pull you away from them. They can fill you in though." Carmen said, walking with Knox out of the dining hall and a little way down the corridor. "I just thought I'd tell you again that you write very well. You worry me a little because you seem a little…well obsessed, but, like Mr. Keating said, poetry is usedto 'woo women' as he put it to my senior class. You might get some strange looks, but at least you'll get the girl." Knox smiled at her.

"I can't believe he taught you before. When you were our age. It's odd isn't it?"

"Is that all you picked up?" she asked, laughing slightly.

"No," said Knox, "I just thought it was interesting. But… thanks."

"Try to keep the obsession to a minimum though. You might scare her."

"I'll keep that in mind. Thanks for the advice."

She nodded and said, "Alright, well then congratulations on obsessively wooing a girl you've only met once and sorry if I made you look like a teacher's pet in front of your friends."

"You didn't."

She nodded. "Good. See you later then." and she turned to return to her apartment.

AN: Very short, but she's bonding with the poets, which is at this point…_the point_. You likey??? Review review review!!!


	5. The Dead Poets Society

Disclaimer: If I owned dead poets, the ending would be far happier…but alas…I don't.

AN: Carmen's not a creeper for the record, she's cool. (I don't even really know what 'alas (see above) means.)

No More _Dead_ Poets**: The Dead Poets Society**

Carmen stayed up late. She was reading through some of the essays Mr. Keating had given to her, trying to make out Hopkins's untidy hand, loving the fact that Meeks's writing resembled that of a large-type typewriter and enthralled in the way Neil could put so much emotion into something as common as an essay.

It was past eleven at night when she took her coat off the hook and headed outside. She walked down to where the school's enormous campus boundaries began, and followed a small stream through the trees. She came to a gap in the rock wall on her right. Voices and light were issuing from it and she entered.

"…and suck out all the marrow of life."

"That's brutal," Carmen said, as she walked in to see Neil, Todd, Charlie, Knox, Pitts, Meeks, and Cameron sitting around the edge of the cave. All seven of them jumped to their feet, surprised, when they heard her voice. Carmen heard something collide forcefully with the rock wall of the cave. Her eyes widened as Pitts rubbed the back of his head. "You okay Pittsy?" she said, improvising a nickname on the spot, "Jesus, you guys, relax. Sit down. Can I have a cookie?"

Charlie sat first, reached forward and handed a chocolate chip cookie to Carmen. She seated herself on his left, to Meeks's right. Cameron stayed standing, looking wide-eyed at her.

"You're not going to turn us in are you? I didn't think of this. This was not my idea…I,"

"Cameron," Carmen said, looking over at him, "shut up. Of course I'm not going to turn you in. I just wanted to see the place Mr. Keating talked about so much. He told my class all about his little excursions into the Vermont woods. He said that the Dead Poets Society had stopped meeting when he left, or so he thought…"

"It did stop," said Neil. Carmen looked at him. "We started it again." He smiled, looking proud.

"Oh did you? I thought this was some kind of midnight study group. Well let's hear it then. Some of your Thoreau, Whitman, Shakespeare."

"_Gather ye rose-buds while ye man,_

_Old Time is still a flying:_

_And this same flower that smiles today,_

_Tomorrow will be dying," _said Pitts, his hand still on the back of his head.

"That's appropriate."Carmen joked. "Herrick," said Carmen, "Robert Herrick. _To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time._ Carpe Diem. Here

_Night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast, _

_And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger; _

_At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there, _

_Troop home to churchyards."_ Neil smiled excitedly.

"That's Puck. From _A Midsummer Night's Dream_."

"Wow," Carmen said, "How many people can cite Shakespeare."

"He's the living Puck, didn't you know?" said Charlie. Carmen looked at him quizzically. "They're putting it on and Henley Hall and he's Puck."

"Congrats," said Carmen, "I'd shake your hand, but you're over there." Neil stood as much as he could and reached out his hand. She laughed at shook it.

"You're freezing," said Neil, sitting back down.

"I can solve that," said Charlie. He moved closer to her ad put an arm around her shoulders. Carmen laughed. It was amusing to her that no more than three minutes ago she had scared them simply by walking in and now they were reciting poetry together and acting as peers and friends, though she had only known them for a few days.

"This is new," she said, "How many people do you know who flirt with their student teachers?"

"Charlie flirts with everybody," said Cameron.

"Hey, shut up!" said Charlie, he kicked out toward Cameron's legs, but Cameron move out of the way.

"Oh gross! Get off," Carmen said; laughing again and pushing Charlie back away from her.

"Good one Cameron," Charlie told him. Carmen looked at him disbelievingly, a 'where did you _honestly_ think you were going to get?' look. Charlie laughed.

"So how often do you guys do this anyway? These meetings?"

"We can tell you if you want. We'll tell you when the next meeting is when we know ourselves," said Meeks.

"You should. As for right now, I'm going to bed. See you in the morning." She took one more cookie and left the cave.

AN: What do you think? Good? Bad? Weird? Dumb? Should I stop giving you suggestions because you are already reviewing with your own words?

Yes.


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